Full Circle
by Gedia Kacela
Summary: "So this was it... He'd always imagined it as worse, like the Cruciatus, a mind-numbing pain that drove you mad until your release. It wasn't so horrible after all." A life not-quite-lived comes full circle.


Full Circle

Disclaimer: I own nothing that comes from JKR's brilliant mind.

Author's Note: A dark little ficlet, this is. I just started writing, and the plot came to me as I went along. A life lived comes full circle.

***

So this was it. This was what he had been running from for so many years? This was the great horror that terrorized the world?

So this was how the Muggles felt... a mix of cold blade and warm blood tingling his senses all at once.

It wasn't so bad, really.

He'd always imagined it as worse, like the Cruciatus, a mind-numbing pain that drove you mad until your release. It wasn't so horrible after all.

Even the pain that curled through his limbs, stiffening and numbing them slowly, wasn't unbearable. He supposed that there were more horrible ways, more painful and longer. But he had lost all sense of time.

How long had he been lying here thus? An hour? Two? A mere minute? How long since it had begun? He couldn't be sure. Time waned and waxed like the moon, warping itself cruelly. His eyes were open as he lay motionless, but there was nothing to see. He had been alone since it had begun, since _he_ had left him.

He should have known that it would have been him in the end, that he would be the undoing. But he didn't blame him. He hadn't even tried to prevent it.

His eyelids were growing heavy, like exhaustion before sleep. Sleep. It would be like sleep, soft and deep, an escape from all this madness, an escape from the past.

He didn't blame the boy. It was only right, after all he had done to him. He knew by experience that there was only so much one could tolerate before something inside finally snapped. He had snapped, not so many years ago. He had been about the boy's age, young and helpless, carrying too much weight on his thin shoulders. There were not so different, though several decades spanned their ages. 

He knew that it would only be so long before the boy killed. But therein lay the difference. He had killed as a Death Eater, while the boy had killed a Death Eater. He wondered if both were equal sins, or if the latter was considered a good deed instead.

Both acts, sins or no, had been committed in rage. He had seen it in the green eyes as metal plunged through skin. Rage. There was so much anger, anger against the Lord for the deaths of his family, for the deaths of his friends and red-haired fiancee, anger against his victim, for the humiliation and disgrace, for the condescention and betrayal.

The Lord had not been his to kill, so he had turned the full force of his rage on the latter. Hot tears had streamed down the boy's face as he had committed his murderous act; none of them were of guilt. Neither should they be. He deserved this, deserved to die as he had killed.

He had not tried to stop it. As the boy had come at him, hate burning dark green in his eyes, he had merely opened his arms and welcomed the attack, had issued no sound but a whispered thanks to his assailant. It would be over now.

The boy had stood above him for several moments, his shoulders shaking with sobs, the salt from his spilt tears mingling with the unhindered flow of blood. "I hate you," he whispered, black hair coated with the blood of lost friends smearing across his pale face. "I hate you." He repeated the choked mantra several times over, his entire body trembling beneath shabby, torn robes, as if trying to convince himself that the words were true.

He had merely nodded slowly, painfully, accepting the declaration as fact. He was used to being hated, had almost reveled in it. Being despised gave him an excuse for his past, an excuse for what he had become.

For a moment, as he stared up at the boy, he saw himself standing instead over his own first victim. The hair was a little longer, the nose not so delicate, the eyes obsidian instead of emerald. But the hatred mirrored there was the same.

One day, perhaps, the roles would once more be reversed, the sin would come full-circle, and the boy would be a man. His blood would litter the ground... blood for blood, death for death. 

It would never end, that unforgiving destiny. Over and over the scene would be replayed, with different actors in the parts, but always the same grisly ending. He had once played the part of the young, wronged murderer, the star of his own production, attempting to vindicate himself by the knife.

But now it was Severus Snape's turn to bow out of life's play.

Harry Potter had taken his role. It was his turn to star... until the next reprise, at least.

So this was it.

END


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